Katherine O’Neal (4 page)

She noticed his gaze as it returned to her
bosom and chuckled softly. “I thought it only fair that you share
your profits, since I was the one who arranged for you to come.
Consider it a percentage for services rendered.”

Same old Saranda. Yet she seemed completely
different from the woman he’d spent the evening with earlier in the
presence of strangers. Gone was the sophistication of Sarah Voors.
Her silvery hair hung about her face and shoulders in dishabille,
appearing like a halo of moonbeams in the shimmer of the lamp. Her
eyes appeared lighter, more of a smoky bluish grey. They were huge
in her face, compelling in their remote mystery and taunting
sensuality. She seemed lusher, more astonishingly beautiful,
without the magnificent “costume” she’d worn earlier.

“How’d you get in here?” he asked, still
dumbfounded by sleep, still marking the possibility that he was
dreaming. He was in one of the many guest rooms in the Van Slyke
mansion. As was his custom, he’d locked the door before retiring.
He knew she was staying the weekend, to act as hostess to the
assemblage of other overnight guests. But to get in, she’d have had
to sneak down the hall from her own room without being detected,
pick the lock, light the lamp, go through his wallet, retrieve his
gun, and shake out the bullets, all while he slept. Out of
necessity, he’d become a light sleeper, always ready to pull his
weapon at the slightest sound. In all his years on the frontier, in
the company of hard men, he’d never met anyone capable of getting
the jump on him. It unsettled him now to realize the extent of her
abilities.

She held up a small steel file. “Tricks of
the trade,” she whispered with a smile. “But you disappoint me,
darling. I had imagined you’d be happy to see me.”

He glanced down at his long johns, feeling
awkwardly at a disadvantage. “This strikes me as a situation that
could get a man killed. What if your intended comes looking for you
and finds you in my room?”

“That’s what makes it all the more fun. But
you needn’t worry. If you keep your voice down, no one will know.
Besides, Winny’s too much the gentleman to visit my room before the
wedding. Oh, Bat, it is good to see you.” She crawled across his
bed and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. She smelled
clean and refreshingly like a woman but without the distracting
fragrance of perfume. He remembered from the old days that she
never wore any scent in case she needed to make a quick getaway.
She’d told him once of a man who’d been caught because the woman
he’d fleeced had recognized the smell of his cologne.

“I thought we were going to talk tomorrow,”
he said, not daring to touch her. He’d forgotten how soft she was,
how tempting her skin.

“It
is
tomorrow. Did you fancy a
reunion chat over breakfast with our guests?”

He reached up and took her arms from his
neck, pushing her away. “Let me look at you.”

She rose to her feet and stretched out her
arms for his perusal.

“You’re still the prettiest thing this side
of the Great Divide.”

With the instincts of a woman who knew the
power of her sensuality, she played to his aroused state by
twirling around so he could get an eyeful. “Then you think I look
all right? Fashions have changed since I saw you last. I’m afraid
these tight sheaths don’t quite suit me. I have a wretchedly
rounded bottom that keeps wanting to show itself when I walk. Much
more suited to bustles. What do you think, Bat? Is my body
too
unfashionable?”

She dropped the lace wrapper to the floor and
walked away from him a few steps, so he could see every curve of
her swaying backside enticingly outlined against the clinging lace.
He groaned miserably when he realized she was wearing nothing
underneath. Smiling, she paused to look back over her shoulder at
his disgruntled stare.

“You damned temptress. You have the most
fetching—fanny of any woman alive, and you know it.”

She stroked it consideringly with a slim
hand. “It’s my best feature, actually, my bum—fashionable or not. A
pity it can’t be shown off to advantage these days.”

Bat was sweating. He loved her, of course,
had since she’d first burst into his life like a shower of shooting
stars. But he knew he was no match for her. She appealed to the
shamster side of him—the one that allowed him to straddle the fence
and change sides of the law, depending on who was wearing the
badge. He’d considered himself quite a rascal in those early days,
but meeting the legendary Saranda Sherwin had quickly shown him
what an amateur he really was. He’d come to think of her—in her own
way—as royalty of sorts. Not that he hadn’t tried to live up to
her. He’d done everything he could to get her to share his bed.
When at last she’d appeased him that one and only time, she’d
proved to him what she’d been warning him all along. Much as he
hated to admit it, she was too much woman for him. And he knew
it.

To ease the blow, she’d confessed that she’d
never been in love. She was incapable of it, she explained. She
could see men only as partners in crime, as Bat had been, or
suckers to be fleeced.

Realizing they had no future, he’d been
strangely content to play the brother, which was how she’d treated
him. At least under normal circumstances he was content. But he
hadn’t seen her in a long time. Suddenly, seeing her in his
bedroom, looking so ripe, so sweet, so damnably tempting, made his
hands itch to reach out and touch the luscious backside she was
caressing. The proximity of her scantily clad flesh tested the
limits of his restraint.

He swallowed with difficulty. Very quietly,
he said, “Put your robe on, honey. You think I’m made of
stone?”

Her eyes softened, and she retrieved her
wrapper. “I suppose it’s cruel of me to tease you. I do it only
because I know your feeling for me as the infatuation it really is.
One of these days you’ll find a woman who’s worthy of you, and
you’ll forget all about me.”

It wasn’t a subject he wanted to pursue.

Footsteps sounded in the outside hall. They
both froze, their eyes fixed on the door. Bat was planning what
he’d say if they were caught when the interloper moved on. Bat’s
body sagged as he released a pent-up breath.

Saranda turned to him with a delighted grin,
infuriating him with her coolness.

“Why’d you bring me here?” he asked gruffly.
“It appears to me it took some doing.”

She shrugged, as if it had been the easiest
thing in the world. “They were going to bring some gunfighter
anyway. I just planted the idea in Winny’s head, and he took it
to—Archer. I thought if they were going to bring someone, it might
as well be you. Knowing what a gambler you are, I assumed you could
use the money. And I doubted you’d be adverse to the publicity. But
mostly, I missed you. I wanted to see you again.”

“I’m flattered.” He glanced nervously at the
door. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re up to, before they
come looking for you? And hand over that Colt, would you?”

She handed the gun to him, and he proceeded
to replace the bullets as she wrapped the lace robe about her and
sat cross-legged at the end of his bed.

“Where to start?”

“Start with Archer. Who is he?”

“Mace Blackwood.”

She said it as if it should mean something to
him. “Blackwood... Why does that sound familiar?”

“The Blackwoods are a family of confidence
artists that stretches back as long as mine does—at least three
hundred years. Our families have been feuding almost as long. It’s
become a tradition to outcon the other family, preferably without
the other knowing they’re being duped. Until Lance Blackwood
crossed the line.”

“Who’s Lance Blackwood?”

“Mace’s brother.” Her voice showed her
contempt. “I can’t tell you all of it. Suffice it to say, the
Blackwoods are evil incarnate.”

“Unlike
your
family.”

She leaned forward, speaking in a low,
defensive tone. “I may come from a long line of clippers, just as
Mace Blackwood does, but we Sherwins had a code of honor we never
broke. We never conned or stole from people who didn’t deserve it.
In over three hundred years, we never once killed anyone to get
what we wanted. We had style, we had finesse. My mother was
fortune-teller to the aristocracy.”

“Sugar, you don’t have to justify your family
to me.”

“I’m not justifying them. I’m merely pointing
out a crucial difference. Not only are the Blackwoods capable of
murder, they resort to it at the drop of a hat. Bat, Lance
Blackwood killed my parents.”

“I see,” he said softly. He knew what
Saranda’s parents had meant to her—particularly her father—and how
losing them at the tender age of thirteen had scarred her.

“He blamed my mother and father for his own
parents’ death. They were involved in what was for them their
biggest con ever. Lance was to impersonate the son of a wealthy
American on a cruise down the Nile. One of those special cruises,
you know, invited guests from the aristocracy, that sort of thing.
His mission was to steal what jewels he could off the other guests.
But something went awry. He kidnapped the real American as planned,
but killed him instead of releasing him after the job. My parents
found out about it and informed the authorities. The Blackwoods had
stepped over the line, you see, by committing murder. My father was
adamant that a good confidence artist never resorts to violence—we
don’t need to, if we know our business. So he put a stop to the job
before anyone else could get hurt. The upshot of it was that the
three of them were captured. Lance escaped—no doubt with the help
of his brother, Mace—but the parents were hanged. No loss to the
world, certainly. But they were vilified over the length and
breadth of England. The London
Times
took it on like a
personal vendetta.”

“So Lance got even, is that it?”

“Anyone else might have realized it was his
own actions that brought this about and take responsibility. But
Lance was quite mad. He’d been blinded in one eye somehow. Spent
most of his time taking it out on the world at large and us
Sherwins in particular. Blamed his incessant failure as a hustler
on his deformity. It never once occurred to the bastard that he was
incompetent—or out of his mind, which of course he was.” She
shuddered, remembering.

“Where’s Lance now?”

“Dead. He died trying to escape England when
his ship went down at sea.”

“And Mace—”

“Is the last living Blackwood. The best of
the bunch. My father, who was the greatest confidence man of his
time, claimed Mace Blackwood was the best he’d ever seen. The
veritable crown prince of the Blackwood line. His hoaxes are as
notorious as he is. After his parents died, he went to Oxford, of
all places.”

“Oxford University?”

“Indeed. Faked credentials, assumed the
accent, and in time became more like them than they were
themselves. They didn’t know what hit them. In swift succession, he
became captain of the rowing team, the debate club—you name it.
Editor of the newspaper. He was, in fact, the first to challenge
the administration in print. That’s where he acquired his
impeccable speech. The rest of his family spoke like East Enders.
But that was just the beginning. After leaving England, he cut a
wide swath through Europe, bilking untold treasures from wealthy
noblewomen who were more than willing to part with their jewels in
exchange for his presence in their beds.” Her tone had turned
acrid. She took a moment to alter it. “To date, no one has
successfully nicked him. That’s where I come in. I’m going to bring
him down once and for all.”

“Is that why you got engaged to Van
Slyke?”

“It’s one reason, yes. I spent years tracking
Blackwood all across Europe before he sailed for America. I kept
losing track of him. Though I never told you, that’s the reason I
was traveling through the West when I met you. I knew that sooner
or later, I’d run into him again. Finally, I found him here in New
York. He’d assumed the role of Archer and, as you can see, had
everyone fooled—particularly the Van Slykes. It’s the biggest con
he’s pulled to date—and the most successful.”

“So you saw your chance,” Bat murmured.

“I knew if I could get close to the Van
Slykes, I could put a stop to Blackwood’s scuttle. It wasn’t until
I saw a picture of Lalita—Winny’s mother—that I knew how to go
about it.”

“So you made yourself over to look like her,
knowing if the son didn’t fall for you, the father would.”

“Something like that. Although it all sounds
rather coldhearted, when you say it like that. It was at first, I
readily admit it. All I cared about was making Blackwood pay for
what his family did to mine—for
destroying
mine. But
something happened along the way. I discovered what everyone learns
after getting to know the Van Slykes—they’re two of the kindest and
most decent men who ever lived. They genuinely love me and want me
to be a part of their family. Bat, do you know what that means to
me?” Her voice was soft, emotional.

“I reckon I do.”

“So it isn’t just about destroying Blackwood
anymore. It’s about protecting the Van Slykes from him. He’s got
them so bamboozled, Jackson was going to leave the
Globe-Journal
to him! Until I came along. Not that I’m being
noble. By destroying Blackwood’s con, I shall not only protect the
Van Slykes, but I shall wreak my revenge as well.”

“Just how are you planning to do that?” he
asked.

“By becoming so indispensable to the Van
Slykes that my influence supersedes Blackwood’s. I shall become a
voice they trust and listen to. Gradually become more and more
involved with the newspaper, so I can undermine his authority. Then
I shall have him disgraced and fired. So publicly, he’ll never be
able to pull another con.”